In a complex underground dungeon, Su’en was playing a monster-hunting game with the trial team of the “Black Tower Alchemy Academy”.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them, in the street above their heads, a large disguised tanker truck stopped in a hidden alley.
Several men in black held a certain device and scanned the sewer entrance, seemingly searching for something.
After a while, the device lit up with a red light, and the leader of the men in black spoke.
“Have you determined their location?”
“Yes, the target is about two hundred meters underground, currently exploring deeper to the west.”
“Release the distorted monster.”
“Yes, boss.”
As they spoke, they opened the valve of the tanker truck and inserted a pipe into the sewer entrance on the street. With a squirming sound, a black viscous liquid, resembling oil, slowly poured into the sewer.
……
The students’ shooting game continued.
Su’en leisurely followed along, although he hadn’t gone this deep last time, the surroundings were familiar to him.
In addition to the ancient subway tunnels left behind in this dungeon, there were also many pits dug out by monsters, leading in various directions, and it was unknown where they ultimately led to.
Even the monsters in the sewer had their own territories. Su’en knew that they were about to reach the lair of those crawling monsters, a huge space resembling a subway hub.
“Haha… Captain Jack just killed eight monsters again, all headshots. He truly deserves to be the number one sharpshooter in our academy.”
“Our team has already collected seven cursed materials, exceeding the trial task requirements.”
“Hey, Galen, your goals are too low. Captain Jack doesn’t want these ordinary materials. We need higher quality silver materials. Hopefully, we’ll encounter more elite monsters, preferably of the ‘Eerie’ level. Maybe we’ll even get some gold materials. Then our trial results will definitely be displayed on the academy’s honor wall…”
“Miss Rena, I’m telling you, our team will definitely take first place in this trial. The results of this trial will be our best coming-of-age gift…”
“…”
The four teams of five steadily advanced, feeling no sense of danger.
During their free time, the young students would chat and joke with each other.
As the guide, Su’en followed behind the team, appearing idle. He took the opportunity to carefully observe each student in the team. Although they all wore gas masks and night vision goggles, he could roughly discern their personalities through their attire, skin color, and physique.
Although he couldn’t see the faces of the female students clearly, he could guess that they were surrounded by admirers and must have attractive appearances.
Especially Rena, there were always boys hovering around her, trying to impress her.
However, Su’en wasn’t particularly interested in those delicate female students. Compared to them, he was more interested in the monster corpses.
Although the probability of “gray mist” appearing on the distorted monster corpses was low, the number of monsters killed was high.
Along the way, as the students pushed forward, Su’en also collected two clusters of gray mist.
From the memories of the monsters, he extracted more detailed maps of the dungeon and some “counter-joint movement techniques”.
Although these movements didn’t conform to the normal human body’s power exertion habits, there was no denying that some of these monster techniques were suitable for his high agility attribute as a “Deceptive Puppeteer”.
Similar to the “Five Animal Frolics” from his previous life, imitating the postures of animals could develop the rarely used small muscle groups in the human body. These climbing techniques of the monsters made Su’en feel like he could climb walls like a gecko, maximizing the utilization of his agility attribute.
With money to earn and fragments to harvest, Su’en felt that this mission was not bad, at least for now.
……
After a while, everyone arrived at an open space, about the size of six or seven football fields, with a high ceiling.
From the layout of the buildings, it could be seen that this was once a hub station for the underground railway in Old Lingdun.
Obviously, this was the monster’s nest that Su’en remembered.
When the trial team arrived, the monsters were briefly startled and hid in various pits and buildings.
The students were excited. They had been in narrow tunnels all the way, and the monsters had been killed by those with good marksmanship. Now, in such a spacious area, everyone had the opportunity for real combat, and they rushed forward eagerly.
“Wow… this is indeed the monster’s lair, there are so many distorted monsters!”
“Haha, now it’s our turn to show off!”
“Team Three, follow me. We need to catch up with the trial results…”
“…”
The four teams of five chose different directions and began their extermination operation. Of course, except for Charlie’s team deliberately lagging behind, everyone else seemed very enthusiastic.
The two teaching assistants didn’t follow along either. They chose a high vantage point to stand, holding notebooks and recording the performance of each student in the academy. That position allowed them to overlook most of the space and provide timely rescue in case of emergencies.
Su’en also chose a distance that was neither too far nor too close to observe everything here.
Although the mission was easy, he never let his guard down. The safety of the students was guaranteed, but he didn’t believe that if he encountered danger himself, those mentors would definitely save a low-level member of the underworld like him.
He was indeed very familiar with this space, and Su’en knew that this was the lair of the “Zombie Breed” distorted monsters. However, he didn’t know how many monsters were here and what kinds of mutated creatures there were…He glanced at the buildings and the countless dark holes above his head, his gaze slightly heavy.
His sense of danger told him that something in the darkness seemed to be watching their group.
The two assistants were observing the progress of the team while chatting.
“The new generation ‘Night III Combat Suit’ does indeed have strong protective capabilities. But over-reliance on equipment can also cause the students to lose a large part of their necessary crisis response capabilities. The effect of the trial may not meet expectations…”
“Yeah, when we were tested, it was the first generation. The defense was not far off. Tsk, these kids should suffer a bit, after all, the academy has instructions to increase the difficulty of the trial, right?”
“Let’s find an opportunity to test their adaptability later.”
“Mm, there should be an opportunity soon…”
The two did not avoid Su’en while chatting. From their conversation, it seemed that the two assistants might take some action to increase the difficulty of the trial.
But it made sense. With bodyguards around all the time, the students would not be alert at all.
Just as the two assistants were chatting, a sudden change occurred!
……
The students, in groups of five, were reaping the lives of those mutant monsters.
But at this moment, a mutant beast over three meters tall suddenly sprang out from nowhere. It charged like a gorilla, directly knocking a team flying.
Immediately, someone shouted, “Be careful, it’s a ‘Zombie-type Aberration’!”
Upon hearing this, Su’en’s pupils contracted sharply, and he focused his gaze.
An “Aberration” is defined as a cursed creature that is stronger than its peers, has a certain level of intelligence, and usually has the ability to command other mutant monsters.
In simpler terms, it’s a boss monster.
Aberrations are also divided into ordinary, silver, gold, lord-level… based on their strength.
There are generally three types of Aberrations: Zombie-type (humanoid), Ghost-type (spiritual), and Beast-type (monster).
In more detail, there are some extremely rare special categories, such as “Mythical-type”, “Elf-type”, “Phantom Beast-type”, “Abyss-type”…
And mutant monsters that can reach the “Aberration” level almost 100% produce cursed materials, and the quality far exceeds that of silver and gold materials of the same level.
This is the monster that the hunters are reluctant to face, but look forward to hunting.
……
“This Zombie-type Aberration is so strong… But, the defense of those combat suits is too exaggerated.”
Su’en watched the sudden situation in front of him. After a slight surprise, he didn’t show much difference.
It would be strange if there weren’t one or two bosses in such a large group of mutant monsters.
The two assistants obviously knew this, but they didn’t warn in advance, letting those impulsive students suffer a loss.
However, what surprised Su’en more than the ferocity of the monster was the “Liquid Combat Suit” on the students.
Just now, the “Zombie-type Aberration” directly hit several students, knocking them all flying. Judging from the impact and the speed of the body flying backwards, Su’en determined that the monster’s impact was extremely strong, not inferior to a heavy truck hitting at full speed.
If it were an ordinary person, they would probably die on the spot from this hit.
But just like that, the students who were knocked flying, although embarrassed, stood up unscathed.
Su’en’s keen eyes allowed him to clearly see what had just happened, and he quickly analyzed some properties of the combat suit: “The blue light mark on the clothes should be the energy supply system, and the alchemical runes on it are at least second-level ‘Solidity Runes’ and ‘Resilience Runes’… It’s a strange material, it’s like a non-Newtonian fluid, absorbing most of the impact energy with its fluctuations.”
At this time, Su’en saw that the rune blue light on the student who was hit the hardest had become dim. Then he replaced a few new energy crystals like changing batteries, and sighed in his heart: “Ah… using ‘Cursed Crystals’ worth ten thousand each as energy, no wonder the defense is so strong. It’s another money-burning piece of black technology…”
Such armor, not to mention whether it can be bought outside, for ordinary hunters, even if they have it, they can’t afford such extravagant consumption.